Peter Lord, animator behind claymation staples Wallace & Gromit and Chicken Run, directs this very British, very dry romp on the high seas during the time when Britannia did indeed rule the waves. The running joke is that Pirate Captain (Hugh Grant), a fussy swashbuckler more concerned with his "luxurious" beard than pillaging and looting, wants to be Pirate of the Year, but his ambition faces a major obstacle: his inept crew don't match up well with the top-of-the-line competition (Salma Hayek as Cutlass Liz among the lot). But for all its posturing (it's based on the books by Gideon Defoe, who also wrote the script) and visual élan, Pirates never really raises anchor. That despite outlandish cameos by Charles Darwin and Queen Victoria as villains (she hates pirates). Plus a dodo, a sassy Jane Austen, and even the Elephant Man shiver a few timbers as well.

Review: My Afternoons with Margueritte European cinema doesn't have as many sure-fire formulas as Hollywood, but the one described, I think, by Pauline Kael as the "lonely child, clean old man" scenario has long endured.

Review: Battle Royale (2000) In a not-so-distant future society that has devolved into chaos, Japan's youth run amok, Clockwork Orange –style, and the government has passed an act decreeing that one unruly grade-school class will face off in a battle from which only one will emerge. Sound familiar?

Review: Bullhead What this cattle farmer at the center of talented writer/director Michael R. Roskam's debut feature – Belgium's foreign-language Oscar nominee – lacks, he tries to make up for with steroids.

Review: Tyrannosaur In his directorial debut, actor Paddy Considine has learned that the best way to develop sympathy for someone who kicks his dog to death is by comparing him to another character (Eddie Marsan) who urinates on his wife.

Review: Addiction Incorporated Much of the first half of Charles Evans Jr.'s muckraking documentary is annoyingly gimmicky, relying on unneeded graphics, animation, and imitation-Errol-Morris effects to tell the tale of a Philip Morris scientist, Victor DeNoble, who became a key government witness against his old employer.

Review: Act of Valor New York congressman John King is investigating alleged collusion between the CIA and those involved in Kathryn Bigelow's film about the Navy SEALs' killing of Bin Laden, pressuring the studio into holding up the release until after the Presidential election to avoid charges of partisanship.

Review: Chico & Rita This is the first animated movie nominated in that category to show pubic hair, and as a film for grown-ups it outclasses most of the nominees for Best Picture.

Review: Kill List Following up his impressive debut, Down Terrace , Ben Wheatley's Yorkshire-based crime thriller swerves with abrupt satisfaction into horror in its final moments.

Review: Tyler Perry's Good Deeds Tyler Perry is no Douglas Sirk. In his latest melodrama, his uptight exec, San Francisco software company CEO Wesley Deeds, is no Madea, either. Hell, Deeds doesn't even know who he is himself.

HOLLYWOOD, RI-STYLE | July 30, 2014 The 2014 edition will premiere more than 240 films (features, shorts and documentaries) from 62 countries and 34 US states.

GLOBAL CINEMA, LOCAL FLAVOR | August 08, 2013 The 17th annual incarnation of the Rhode Island International Film Festival begins its weeklong run on August 6. The festival, which boasts more than 200 films from 65 countries, is a celebration of the cinematic arts with a campus feel and a focus on all things Rhode Island.

REVIEW: SAFE HAVEN | February 14, 2013 Somewhere along the way Nicholas Sparks went from being just a bestselling author of preachy schmaltz to a full-on franchise (he produces the movies of his books).